Some hope it will begin a long-overdue trend toward recognizing more alternative types of relationships.

Hatsune Miko is a singing voice synthesizer featured in over 100,000 songs globally. Her name means “Voice from the Future.” And Akihiko Kondo has married the “animated 16-year-old with saucer eyes and lengthy aquamarine pigtails,” in the form of a stuffed toy, in a formal wedding ceremony at a Tokyo hall:

“I’ve been thinking about her every day,” he told AFP a week after the wedding.

Since March, Kondo has been living with a moving, talking hologram of Miku that floats in a $2,800 desktop device.

While the marriage does not, at present, have legal standing, Gatebox, the company that produces the hologram, has issued more than 3,700 certificates for such “cross-dimension” marriages, according to AFP, so cross-dimension marriage seekers could at some point become a vocal minority.

In Japan, one in four men is still single at age 50. Here’s an overview, featuring a different virtual bride:

Mind Matters features original news and analysis at the intersection of artificial and natural intelligence. Through articles and podcasts, it explores issues, challenges, and controversies relating to human and artificial intelligence from a perspective that values the unique capabilities of human beings. Mind Matters is published by the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.